My baby is trucking right along in his solid food experiments. He snarfs down meatballs and fish, Cheerios and freeze-dried veggie discs. We’re trying as much as possible to practice baby-led weaning, which at our house means we toss cubes of food on his tray and mostly ignore him while we finish preparing food, tending his older brother, and trying to eat our own food.
Felix is working on so many skills! Pincer grip, chewing, swallowing…eating is hard work!
We’ve had to learn the difference between choking and gagging and figuring out swallowing. At first, I always worried Felix was choking, but I soon learned to recognize his little coughs and delighted as he practiced swallowing bits of food. He seemed to learn really quickly and as I modeled chewing for him, he worked his way through all sorts of big-boy foods.
And then we fed him raisins.
Felix ate about 700 raisins, and then started gagging and spitting, like a cat coughing up a hairball. Then, faster than I could wipe them away, he grabbed the raisins and crammed them into his mouth for a second attempt. He looked like a college kid after a fraternity party.
What? Gross! Right?
After I composed myself, I remembered that my older son used to do this all the time with cashews. It took him awhile to learn to chew them all the way and he didn’t seem to want to waste any of his practice attempts.
I suppose I’d mentally prepared for the mess of food being flung across the room or smeared into hair. Of course, I’ve seen what new solids can do in a diaper. I just wasn’t thinking about all the ways a kid could be messy while learning to eat solids!
Thankfully, his next attempt at raisins was much tidier. And so we’ll move on to test out something new. I’m thinking I’ll stick with something mushier this time! Like pears…
Did your baby have any interesting experiences with solids? Leave us a comment to share your adventure!
BLW scares me. Really?
Feeding Gray is an ongoing adventure that started with breastfeeding him after he arrived. It just gets more and more complex. Haha!
First, he didn’t want to eat solids. Now, he wants to eat everything! Right now, he loves egg yolk, avacoado, chicken and sometimes peaches. I’m trying to get him into eating blueberries, but am loosing that battle. haha! I ‘m still giving him the boob, but his poops (right now) are so sticky. i wish I could find a veggie that he likes , and a high fiber fruit that he will consistently eat.
Do you have suggestions?
I really really tried giving him chunks, but it’s just too much against myself. It’s like inner fighting – and I am so scared of the choking/gagging. I am just too scared no matter what I read.
So that’s that. I do what I’m comfortable with.